Unless I’ve misunderstood him, David seemed to asserting that god claims in their broadest sense are unfalsifiable. Thus we can know nothing about them, which is the definition of agnosticism. Since I can’t know if an unfalsifiable claim is true or not, I remain an agnostic, and of course withhold belief, so I am also an atheist.
Whenever this is observed I usually ask the same question, do you usually believe claims when you have already acknowledged you can know nothing about them?
Alternatively if anyone asserts they know something about the claim for an extant deity, then please demonstrate some objective evidence to support this claim for knowledge.
What David is getting at is that theists can’t prove their god exists’ despite their fervent faith claims for total lack of any objective evidence, while at the same time, as agnostic atheists we accept we can’t disprove gods exist, for the very same total lack of any objective evidence.
Its an old, old concept. I am surprised you aren’t already familiar with it. Most of my theist friends agree with it as it emphasises the importance of faith for them which would be worthless if they had incontrovertible evidence for their god’s existence.
And really its not something worth arguing about as you are never going to be able to supply that important objective evidence, no theist ever has in 2000 years.
Exactly correct G, and that’s what I understood David to mean.
I’d also counter that faith is worthless in establishing the validity of any claim anyway, as there is literally nothing one cannot belief if one uses faith as a justification. What then is their criteria for disbelief?
I might agree with your interpretation of soul, as long as we can agree it is a brain state. I was into dream cultures, meditation, sociology, etc… and I have taught myself how to do the whole astral projection out of body thing. (You really do have a body and you really do move about… but calling it anything more than a brain state would be an Un-evidenced aqssertion.
I have a very reasonable explanation for the phenomena and I can teach it to others. “Phantom Limb Syndrome” and “Sleep Paralysis” combine to explain it all. Staying awake when the brain disconnects from the body (during sleep) causes the conscious brain to create a phantom body in the same way a phantom limb is created. When the limb is gone, the brain still responds as if it is there. It does the very same thing with the body in the OBE. (This makes much more sense to me than all the woo woo out there in the world. Spirits, astral projection and the rest. All garbage.)
The proposition that a god exists is an unfalsifiable proposition. it can not be proven, or disproven.
Personally, I have a very high confidence that a god does not exist. I’m pretty f–king sure. But I will not fall into the trap of stating there is no god because, just like a theist, I can not prove it exists, or does not.
Thanks for the insight- I’ve never astral projected, but wondered “how real” the experience was (which I assumed was “real” to the experiencer) - but the phantom limb thing goes a long way in explaining the experience.
Absolutely agree Cog. I was not suggesting any woo woo here. The human brain is capable of surprising effects both in pschological and physical health. The power of positive thinking is gravely underestimated.
But for this thread I was thinking more about how early man processed his dreams and how this led to a sense of his spirituality, and with the help of possbibly well meaning charlatans in dangerous, uncertain times, brought about the irrepressible rise of religions.
This is going back 8 to 6 million years ago when gorilla then chimpanzee and human lineages diverge. I watch my dog dreaming, he barks in his sleep, but he never talks about his dreams afterwards. So I wonder when it was when homo sapiens started identifying their dream experiences and what they made of them. It is an accepted part of anthropological study. What did they think when they woke from ultra real dreams in which they had subdued a bear or something? Where was the bear’s body now? Where did all the blood go? How did my wounds heals so quickly? For them to start thinking there was another spiritual reality is not an unreasonable assumption. You could add to this the delusions arising from illness or infections or magic mushrooms etc.
Also, I have mentioned Ramachandran and his remedy for ghost limbs before but I am not sure you are aware of his work, so I’ll just add this short video link because I like him and the area of his research. Ghost Limb Pain Relieved by Tricking the Brain
A common character in Aboriginal mythology is the Bunyip, a fearsome beast who lives around water holes and is specifically known to eat children. Obviously there is an attempt here to prevent kids drowning, but in a dry schlerophyll and desert environment where water is a limited resource and where most waterholes are shallow affairs, the mighty Bunyip serves to prevent the problem of kids doing what they will always do, when they come across water, they jump and splash and foul the drinking hole, mixing it with mud etc. We all know how the feel of water can make you pee. Scary stories have always been a useful fallback feature of parenthood.
See Russell’s Teapot below. That a person cannot prove a belief does not necessarily mean the belief is in something which does not exist. Such a situation is called ‘unfalsifiable’ as opposed to scientific explanations, which are falsifiable.IE they can be tested and found true or unsupported.
On faith: The very definition of faith is “belief without evidence” ****
No less a person than Jesus himself is reported in the gospels as encouraging blind faith:
John 20:29 " Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." (KJV)
The assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition or statement for which there is not complete evidence; belief in general.
n.
Specifically Firm belief based upon confidence in the authority and veracity of another, rather than upon one’s own knowledge, reason, or judgment; earnest and trustful confidence: as, to have faith in the testimony of a witness; to have faith in a friend.
Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context of religion.[1] He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot, too small to be seen by telescopes, orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong.
Russell’s teapot is still invoked in discussions concerning the existence of God, and has had influence in various fields and media.
It would take about a month to train you to do it. It does require practice. 30 minutes a day… every day, and at the same time. Once you get it, you can do it any time.
Awww - and here I was looking forward to meeting the soul sucking parasites . Lol - nope, I know it’s my brain.
I’d try lsd or ‘shrooms - never have given that joints fuck me up - UNDER the supervision of an expert who’d have Zantac ready to bring me back “down” …
I actually hate pot, never tried LSD, but would walk a mile for a shroom. Pot just makes me feel stupid, the same as alcohol, I want to roll over and go to sleep. Shrooming is a mind altering buzz. Hours of insane laughter. And insights into the amazing world you live in that you will forget as soon as you come down off the high.
Everything about shrooming is taking the time to do it right. Right time, right place, right people, and right attitude. This is essential as all of your emotions and senses are heightened.
.
all sorts of psychedelic drugs …
. Lol - nope, I know it’s my brain.